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probably keeping sealant protected as it dries?..........a ton and a half? is that all? It's a hell of a cost just to shift a ton and a half. I hope there was more to it than just that The aircraft has a published payload of 6 tons.

Never suggested it would be carried in the hold, just that 1.5kg of ordnance could just as easily be carried on a pallet(or two), and loaded into a flatbed or back of a truck. If you put it into the back of a 20 foot you have to secure it in an otherwise empty box so it won't move as it is loaded or unloaded from the DROPS vehicle.

German 1: Private Schnutz, I have bad news for you.
German 2: Private? I am a general!
German 1: That is the bad news.

a ton and a half? is that all? It's a hell of a cost just to shift a ton and a half. I hope there was more to it than just that The aircraft has a published payload of 6 tons.

Max cargo is a lot less than 6,000kg, maybe a bare-bones cargo Casa could get off the ground with that weight be certainly not an MPA.
Plus you're also limited by available space onboard in an MPA.
As for cost, to charter an aircraft would cost considerably more.

Who says its 5.56mm ammo? "Ordnance" could be anything from a Steyr rifle to a Javelin anti-tank missile.

Originally Posted by na grohmit√≠

Never suggested it would be carried in the hold, just that 1.5kg of ordnance could just as easily be carried on a pallet(or two), and loaded into a flatbed or back of a truck. If you put it into the back of a 20 foot you have to secure it in an otherwise empty box so it won't move as it is loaded or unloaded from the DROPS vehicle.

No matter what vehicle you load cargo onto its still going to have to be secured, unless its something like backpacks you wouldn't worry about too much.

"Let us be clear about three facts:First of all.All battles and all wars are won in the end by the Infantryman.Secondly the Infantryman bears the brunt of the fighting,his casualties are heavier and he suffers greater extremes of fatigue and discomfort than the other arms.Thirdly,the art of the Infantryman is less stereotyped and harder to acquire than that of any other arm".
-- Field Marshall Earl Wavell.1948

I know. I served on the things. The mission equipment takes up most of the room in the aircraft. As you rightly point out, ordnance means a lot of things. Boots, beans, bullets,etc. For that weight, you'd probably fill one or two ULDs in a Fedex or DHL aircraft and it would probably go Dublin-Frankfurt-Beirut inside 24 hours. Naturally, you have security to consider, it being a UNIFIL job. Running the Casa all the way to Beirut just to shift a ton and a half is inefficient; short legs, multiple fuel stops, crew rest. If all they needed was a few thousand bullets, why not buy it from the Lebanese Government? I expect there was a training element involved in that they might have been showing new pilots the ropes.

The CN235 cannot take a ISO 20ft container, the smallest aircraft that could do that would be a C-130. As for the 6000kg payload, even the non-MPA version would not be able to fly far with that onboard. The MTOW is fixed so more cargo is traded for fuel, this mean if you fly 6000kg then your range drops a lot.

The CN235 cannot take a ISO 20ft container, the smallest aircraft that could do that would be a C-130. As for the 6000kg payload, even the non-MPA version would not be able to fly far with that onboard. The MTOW is fixed so more cargo is traded for fuel, this mean if you fly 6000kg then your range drops a lot.

It's perfectly capable of taking more than 1.5T but the MPA can't take the universal ULD as it's too full already. I'd imagine it was flight planned to make stops every three or four hours over two or three days. it also doesnt mention if there were extra people on board as pax. Once again, it highlights the inability of an MPA to act as a proper cargo aircraft. The Cargo container in the photo was brought there by the DROPs truck.

Yes, a dedicated transport would be better, but it is all we have at the moment and it is always to do a training flight such as this just in case there is another case like Libya again.

The CN-235 can still take at least one ULD on the ramp, one 436L (ULD Type B) and has a rating of 3400kg. The 20ft ISO shown with the DROPS would be able to take 2 436L pallets.
As for stops, looking at the CN-235 Payload/Range diagram and routing restrictions etc they should have been able to make the trip with one stop-over, most likely in Italy.